You know things are messed up when the head of the House committee that covers science doesn’t really understand it. Or, worse even, chooses to bury it and persecute scientists. Such is the case of Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), the chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, who suspects of fraud a group of scientists that explained in a new paper that the global warming hiatus isn’t actually thing. Seems like the world is warming at the same rate as in the 20th century – fast. That didn’t bode well with an obviously biased conservative Republican, so Smith subpoenaed the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to gain access to the private documents and emails of scientists involved in the study.

When we’re talking about CO2 emissions and global warming, we generally mean atmospheric CO2 – where the gas is spewed and generates the greenhouse effect, warming our atmosphere and subsequently, our planet. But a new study conducted by US researchers found that CO2 actually warms the Earth’s crust directly; the more CO2 we emit, the hotter our planet will get.

It was a warm, drought plagued year – in July 2012, farmers in the U.S. Midwest and Plains regions watched crops wither and falter, after a series of unusually high temperatures and low precipitations. However, as the lack of rain continued to make its mark scientists observed another indication of drought in data from NASA and NOAA satellites: plant stress.